here´s something for Wizards. I apologize in advance for choosing one of the least used Wizard skills first. I won´t post why I chose it and why today, basically here´s what I figured out so far.

Important note: The damage values are from the live version of the game. I´m aware that the Arcane Torrent skill damage is being adjusted currently on the PTR. I´ll update this post when the new damage values are final.

@apo: heh didn´t want to outright say it initially but when you already brought it up...I tested the skill after reading that comment where channeling skills were put into one bag although each one uses a different aps scaling...that woke up the researcher in me so I had to see how Arcane Torrent really worked. Don´t trying to act like mr. know-it-all here, let´s say the reason for this research ws curiosity (it was) and leave it at that.

Anyway, for the average player who doesn´t want to minmax and doesn´t care about breakpoints, tooltip damage times aps for most skills is roughly accurate. It becomes a problem if the skill animation is faster/slower than what you´d expect (so the tooltip is misleading). For example Barb´s Weapon Throw which you would assume is 60/aps, is actually 49/aps and Seismic Slam on the other hand is 78/aps between two attacks. That being said, no Barb skill is 60/aps ._.

I only ran a few tests last night considering the cost reduction of the skill, because from researching Firebats I know that cost reduction doesn´t always work at 100%. It seems to work right for AT ((16 - reduction) / 3) but I´ll have to do more tests as with your stats you should lose 13.75 and regen 14 AP...you say you still lose a bit hmm.

The thing is, the resource globe uses decimals (not sure how many) and so it´s pretty tough to figure out the actual cost per tick for certain skills. I got globe responses of -5 and -6 when testing the group of Arcane Torrent runes that share the scaling and -10/-11 on Arcane Mines.

The initial AP response occurred at frame 15, then after 39 frames (note that in the next test it was 14 and 40), 40 frames, 40 frames and 40 frames. The other responses are AP regeneration, which is 1 AP each 6 frames (I had 10 regen while doing the test). Note that the forelast AT response in the sequence is actually -11 but I also got the regen response (+1) on the same frame thus -10. The initial response might have also been -11, sometimes the regen starts instantly.

I plan to do some tests on the PTR now to check the adjusted damage of the skill and I´ll test the cost reduction. Also, I´ll probably make an Arcane Mines breakpoints chart including the time it takes to lay all 6 mines. Now with the improved damage, it could be a viable skill.

EDIT: Ok the initial Arcane Mine tick is unaffected by aps and occurs on frame 14 (it was the same even with 3.186 aps). All subsequent ticks happen at the floor(40/aps) frequency. So the time it´ll take you to lay all 6 mines is

(14 + 5 * (floor(40/aps))

For example at 3.00 aps you only need 79 frames or 79/60 = 1.31667 second.

EDIT 2: Confirming the buffed damage of the skill on the PTR. 340% weapon damage per Mine, the other runes deal 285%/3 = 95% weapon damage per tick and Death Blossom stayed at 670%/3.

Blizzard is a true damage ver time skill (DoT) and it doesn´t scale with aps. It currently deals tooltip damage (510%) / 12 = 42.5% weapon damage each 30 frames (half a second), no matter what your aps is.

So there´s no breakpoints for Blizzard (I´d have to check how the initial tick behaves but it wouldn´t make a significant difference).

Note that getting unsteady damage ticks for Blizzard is nothing unusual for a DoT. In the end, the sum of damage ticks is 510% weapon damage.

EDIT: Seems like the fact that Blizzard is the only DoT I know of that procs on crit effects (APoC), also changed its mechanics. Before the change, like any other DoT, it was all or nothing. Either all ticks were critical or none. Now after a bit of testing it seems each tick can crit separately and if it crits, it deals half of critical hit damage.

Hello, i've just stumbled upon this thread looking for good inputs on my build. Very detailed, kudos Nubtro! So, i am upping this thread since it might be a good reference on the expansion.

Curious, but did any of these mechanics change since the release of the RoS? I'm fairly new to the wizard and would like to look for some first hand advice.

Currently, i have a choice between 1.27 APS vs 1.49 APS. That's a tick frequency of 4.00 (15 frames) vs 4.62 (13 frames) according to the above posted stats. Since i have not reached a full 4.00 to 5.00 tick break point, i do not benefit from the additional 70% damage per tick right? Or do i still get a benefit even at 4.62 APS?

Hello, i've just stumbled upon this thread looking for good inputs on my build. Very detailed, kudos Nubtro! So, i am upping this thread since it might be a good reference on the expansion.

Curious, but did any of these mechanics change since the release of the RoS? I'm fairly new to the wizard and would like to look for some first hand advice.

Currently, i have a choice between 1.27 APS vs 1.49 APS. That's a tick frequency of 4.00 (15 frames) vs 4.62 (13 frames) according to the above posted stats. Since i have not reached a full 4.00 to 5.00 tick break point, i do not benefit from the additional 70% damage per tick right? Or do i still get a benefit even at 4.62 APS?

Thanks! :)

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Fang Leader - Clan Rogue Wolf ®

Hey man, this thread is really old. I don't even know if those breakpoints are still acurate.

If you are currently at 1.64, you can increase your APS to 1.66666 to eek out a little more DPS without increasing your AP consumption.

No. Increasing APS from 1.64 to 1.66 does precisely nothing for AT.If we were talking about Disintegrate or RoF this would be different. But for AT, everything scales with breakpoints, including damage.